Eating bread can help you lose weight — as long as it's high in fibre

Carbs have long been linked to weight gain. But a new study contradicts this association, finding that high-fibre bread can help us lose unwanted pounds

The trend for complete carb avoidance has significantly impacted our fibre intake.

For years bread has been blamed for piling on the pounds, outcast as a carb that is no good for the waistline. Yet new evidence suggests that — provided you use your loaf and select the right variety — bread is not only good for you but will help with weight loss. These welcome findings came from a study published recently in the journal Clinical Nutrition. Swedish researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology showed that substituting regular wheat with high fibre rye-based bread and cereals led to weight and body fat loss in a group of mostly middle-aged men and women.

Rikard Landberg, professor of food and health and lead author of the paper, asked half of his 242 overweight participants to eat a bowl of rye-based breakfast cereals, four to six slices of rye crispbread (think Ryvita) and 2-2.5 slices of soft rye bread every day while the others ate refined wheat versions with the same total calorie intakes. The critical difference was that the rye group “got about 30g of fibre a day compared to just 8 grams obtained by the others”, says Landberg. His goal was to determine how the switch affected their ability to shed pounds.